Eight killed in Russia university shooting, gunman in hospital

MOSCOW, Sept 20: A gunman opened fire Monday on a university campus in central Russia and killed eight people before being detained, investigators said, in the country's second mass shooting this year to target students.
Video on social media showed students throwing belongings from the windows of university buildings in the city of Perm, around 1,300 kilometres (800 miles) east of Moscow, before jumping to flee the shooter. It said 28 people were being treated after the attack at Perm State National Research University.
It said the gunman, later identified as a student at the university, carried out the shooting with a hunting rifle he purchased earlier this year. The health ministry, in comments cited by Russian news agencies, said 19 among the wounded were being treated for gunshots.
State media broadcast amateur footage reportedly taken during the attack showing an individual dressed in black tactical clothing, including a helmet, carrying a weapon and walking through the campus. Video from outside the university showed distressed students fleeing the campus and making phone calls to friends and family behind a cordon of police wearing helmets and body armour.
President Vladimir Putin had been notified of the shooting, the Kremlin said, and ministers had been ordered to travel to Perm to coordinate assistance for the victims. "The president expresses sincere condolences to those who have lost family and loved ones as a result of this incident," Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.Regional authorities said that classes at local schools, colleges and universities were cancelled on Monday. School shootings have been relatively unusual in Russia due to tight security at education facilities and because it is difficult to buy firearms.
But Monday's attack was the second one this year, after a 19-year-old opened fire in his old school in the central city of Kazan in May, killing nine people.
Investigators said that gunman suffered from a brain disorder, but he was deemed fit to receive a license for the semi-automatic shotgun he used in the attack.    -AFP